Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore “flattered” with WP7 features heading over to iOS 5, we think he shouldn’t be

Looks like someone’s not happy with the new iOS 5. Following Apple’s keynote where they announced the next version of iOS, Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore, director of the Windows Phone program, decided to use Twitter to vent his feelings about the new update.

https://twitter.com/#!/joebelfiore/status/77858186945757184

In a couple of tweets that broke the needle on our sarcasm meter, Belfiore said that he was “flattered” that lots of great ideas from Windows Phone 7 made it over to iOS 5. He wasn’t being shy in mentioning which ones either; the ability to start the camera from the lockscreen, auto-upload of pictures to a cloud service, better notifications system, Wi-Fi sync, built-in Twitter, background download service and short-messaging chats.

https://twitter.com/#!/joebelfiore/status/77858553431465985

Now I believe in giving credit where it’s due and certainly some of the things mentioned above were done in WP7 first before anyone else but there are some things I feel Belifiore is taking false credit for. For example the camera lock screen is clearly not something WP7 introduced. At the top of my mind, I can recall a certain Sony Ericsson Vivaz which could start the camera app when you press and hold the shutter button, even when the screen was locked. As for the notification system, I believe the credit for that goes to Android or even WebOS for that matter and not Windows Phone 7. Also, as far as I know, WP7 doesn’t have Twitter integration yet and it supports short-messaging chats over SMS and Facebook, not over a dedicated service like iMessage. Again, the credit for that goes to BlackBerry, not WP7. Also, I don’t think it’s particularly smart to accuse Apple of copying features from Mango that was announced just a couple of weeks back unless he really thinks Apple can copy and implement those features in such a short time.

So while I understand why Belfiore could be frustrated (or who knows, maybe he really was flattered), he really should do his homework before pointing fingers at others. While I’m not justifying what Apple did, I feel taking false credit is equally bad, if not worse.

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